The venue is owned by the Lynnwood Public Facilities District, a public taxing district that operates the convention center but is separate from the city.

“Our understanding is that they’re law-abiding. They have a right of free speech just like any other group,” said Mike Echelbarger, the board’s chairman.

“If we were talking about the (Ku Klux Klan) we’d have a totally different take on it. Of course we wouldn’t rent to the KKK,” he said.

Of course, they wouldn’t rent to the KKK. But as we reported earlier, they may as well. The rhetoric the Watchman use has often been violent, using the rhetoric of warfare in their speeches and writings. Founded by Redmond, Washington by preacher Kenneth Hutcherson, holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, and Latvian megachurch pastor Alexey Ledyaev, Watchmen on the Walls have gained a tremendous amount of influence in Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia. Ledyaev’s fomenting of anti-gay hatred in Riga, Latvia led to violence when skinhead and other demonstrators threw excrement and eggs at Gay Pride participants in 2006.

And as the SPLC recently reported, the Watchmen also represent an increasingly violent anti-gay movement among Slavic evangelical immigrants in several U.S. cities which have previously been known as being gay friendly. In July 2007, a group of Russian-speaking men killed Satendar Singh, a 26-year-old gay Fijian of Indian near Sacramento, California. Two men, Andrey Vusik, 29, and Aleksandr Shevchenko, 21 were charged in connection with Singh’s death. Vusik fled to Russian in July and is being sought by the FBI. Ledyaev and Lively have refused to publicly condemn the killing.

Now, I’ve been working with the Russian community in Sacramento. And I want to tell you this is an example of how bad things are in the United States. Because we’ve come to a place in the United States where the homosexuals have achieved very high power. And they’ve begun to punish… They’ve begun to cause the political powers to punish anyone who says that homosexuality is wrong.

There was a situation in Sacramento a few weeks ago in a public park. There was a group of homosexuals and they were very drunk and one of the homosexual men was taking off his pants. And there were children in the park. And a Russian man went over to these homosexuals and he was rebuking them and there started a fight. And the Russian man punched the homosexual. [The audience starts to shout and applaud.] No, no, no, don’t… The man was very drunk… the homosexual was very drunk. He was very drunk and he fell down and he hit his head and he died. [Some in the audience start to applaud and laugh] No…. no…

Now the Russian man has been accused of murder and the FBI is seeking him. And all of the powers in Sacramento have been accusing all of the Russian community of being murderers. And the goal is to silence everyone who speaks against homosexuality. And this is a very dangerous situation because we don’t want homosexuals to be killed. We want them to be saved. Amen?

Do you feel the love?

Scott Lively’s fame in the Slavic-American evangelical community stems from his book, The Pink Swastika, where he blames the rise of Nazism in Germany on gays. This theory has been readily accepted among a population who suffered mightily at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. In a June 23, 2003 letter to the Washington Times, Lively wrote that “No clear-thinking person believes that the homosexual sexual ethic and that of the family-based society can peacefully coexist. …One must prevail at the expense of the other.” He repeated and expanded that war rhetoric in his remarks in Novosibirsk:

There is a war that is going on in the world. There is a war that is waging across the entire face of the globe. It’s been waging in the United States for decades, and it’s been waging in Europe for decades. It’s a war between Christians and homosexuals.

This is a war you haven’t seen yet. You’ve only seen a little bit of it, because Russia had been protected against the homosexual movement by the Communists. One of the few good things that the Soviet Union did is that it stopped the sexual revolution from infecting the Russian people. But all across the West, the sexual revolution changed the culture of the nations. The sexual revolution embraces the idea that there should be no limits on sexual conduct.

And this is the design of the Devil to destroy civilization, because civilization is based on the natural family. One man and one woman united in marriage bringing children into the world and training them to replace them in the next generation. That’s the foundation of civilization and the heart of Christian living.

And in the United States where the sexual revolution began, it was the homosexual political movement that designed this strategy to attack Christianity. The homosexual movement teaches sexual freedom, and its first target is the heterosexual people. The homosexual activists stayed hidden but they taught this philosophy through their activists. And out of the philosophy came the principalities and powers that is destroying the West: The pornography industry, the abortion industry, and the destruction of marriage through divorce.

These things are the product of a way of thinking. They deny the Truth of God. They deny the design of God for human beings. And their purpose is the change the cultures of the world.

Now, the homosexual movement has been winning this war in the United States, and it has been winning this war in Europe. And we’re looking at the future collapse of Western civilization. And Watchmen on the Walls is an organization to fight against this collapse. Watchmen On the Walls is an organization of men and women with courage, who will stand on the Truth of God and without compromise demand that the culture will follow the guidance of God. That marriage and family must be held at the highest level.

Ken Hutcherson has been equally blunt with the war rhetoric, telling the Seattle Times last January, “We better wake up. This is a war.” Hutcherson went to Latvia last March to speak at Ledyaev’s church in preparation for this year’s Pride celebrations. While there, he claimed that he was speaking on behalf of President Bush, saying that the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives named him “Special Envoy for Adoptions, Family Values, Religious Freedom, and Medical Relief.” When the Seattle Stranger asked the White House about it, spokeswoman Alyssa J. McLenninghen said nobody gave Hutcherson any such title or authority to speak on behalf of the White House. Hutcherson promised to prove his status by producing video of him being given the “power,” but no such proof has surfaced.

According to a translation of the Watchmen On the Walls website, Vlad Kusakin says the conference in Lynnwood is intended to promote the “protection of traditional Christian and moral values, which, owing to the liberalization of mores are under threat of extinction.” Kusakin is the host of a Russian-language anti-gay radio show in Sacramento and the publisher of a Russian-language newspaper in Seattle. He is also one of the speakers at the conference. Scott Lively rallied his Novosibirsk audience with a similar mandate:

If we allow the people who hate God to take control of all the centers of power, then they will change all of the rules and they will put barriers in the way of the Gospel. They will prevent us from telling the truth to the people around us. But if the people of God can step forward and take control of the centers of power, then we can make the rules work in favor of the Gospel. We can use the government to help us tell the message of Jesus Christ. And we must do this!

Jim,
I sent a brief email to the Lynnwood CC asking them to please educate themselves on this group’s history of violence and hateful rhetoric. Additionally, I asked them to not allow the Watchmen to utilize their facilities. For those that wish to do likewise, the email address is info@lynnwoodcc.com

Thanks so much for this report. I never heard of these people, but clearly, the ironic part of this is that they label themselves as “Christian.” I think not. Wearing a cross around your neck and repeating slogans doesn’t make you a Christian any more than pinning an American flag to your lapel makes you a patriot.

Apparently the conv. cntr operates independently from the city. The mayor is not touching this with a 10′ pole. The convention center is run by the Public Facilities Department. Here are the people to contact:

They say their hands are tied behind “freedom of speech”, but then they also say if it was the KKK, they wouldn’t rent to that group. You can’t have it both ways. A hate group is a hate group in my book, and this group is TRYING to set up shop on the West Coast.

I don’t want a violent hateful group in my community, especially a group with the agenda of purposefully making a stronghold here, connected with the likes of Ken Hutcherson. Please contact the PFD and the center.

Notice how Lively points out that it was a group of drunken homosexuals at the park, and that one of the homosexuals was taking his pants off. These facts are not in SLPC’s version. Nowhere does Lively use Satender’s name…Satender is simply referred to as a drunken homosexual. Lively’s version glosses over what the prepetrators said and what they did. Lively makes it sound as if this was all just an unfortuante accident – really more the homosexual’s fault because he was so drunk.

What strikes me as horrifying is that Lively’s audience does not appear to need the pretence of an “accident” to gain their sympathies for the accused. By their applause and cheers they delight in the fact that the world is rid of one more homosexual. So why does Lively bother portraying this event as an ‘accident’ rather than as a murder?

Not even a propagandist can be seen to openly condone murder. A propagandist at least has to pretend to be decent. How curious…those who have no decency still crave to be seen as decent.

Hi. I’m a Moldovan immigrant, and also gay. I’m terribly glad that my parents moved us to the US when I was 11. I’d like to apologise on behalf of my retardoid former-Soviet-bloc comrades and tell you all not to be afraid just because a guy has a Borat accent.

You don`t even want to know what the world would be like without the Christian influence. It was the Christians who introduced civility to civilization. It is the leftist, socialist agenda which is the most intolerant. In order for the radical homosexual agenda to succeed, they have to take away religious and free speech rights. The way I see the movement is: the people who want to force this agenda on the whole country with laws, are the most egotistical, selfish, intolerant people I have ever heard of. Look at the gay pride(!?)parade(what do they have to be proud of?). There was openly lewd behavior and nudity going on right in front of innocent children! Those people should have been rounded up and arrested for obscenity in public! Where are the public decency laws????

Nobody here is interested in pedophilia or bestiality, nor is it a part of any post here. Your suggesting otherwise is patently and deliberately offensive. What’s more, it’s in violation of our Comments policy.

Respectful dialog is welcome and encouraged. Trolling is not. If that’s all you’re interested in doing, then I suggest you move on.

Am not gay and i dont think you guys are welcome to Africa. your acts are repurgnant. and uncouth. we are better off without homosexuals. acts we Love the homos but hate their Acts of homosexuality
incidently hate crimes do not work in most of Africa. Sorry

Mr. Johnson: If you are unable to distinguish between the marriage of two individuals who wish to build a life together, and the a) people who are seriously confused enough to have sex with animals, or b) evil enough to have sex with children…

Then I would suggest to you that you have no moral sense whatsoever, and should only be commenting on the rightness of war as a means of international diplomacy.

I sent a message to the misguided folks at the Lynwood Convention Center, using addresses provided by earlier commenters, above.

Although certainly deserving the name, it is important to not dismiss the Watchmen as simple nutjobs.

In his book American Fascists: Rise of the Christian Right and the Attack on America, Chris Hedges shows how a well organized core of “dominionist” idealogues and their Evangelical hangers-on pose a threat to democratic rights. Gays are among their current most-vulnerable targets, but they seek a dictatorship behind the facade of a religious language so well encounced in American culture.

By blaming domestic and foreign immoral “terrorists” for economic dislocation and pain, German fascists brought down the curtain on democratic rights. It could happen here.

Know thy enemy.

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